


Inside Straight

by Lysandra31



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Card Games, Childhood Memories, Conversations, F/M, Gen, Poker, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-03
Updated: 2013-09-03
Packaged: 2017-12-25 11:49:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/952726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lysandra31/pseuds/Lysandra31
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scully tells Mulder a story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inside Straight

**Author's Note:**

> Title: Inside Straight  
> Author: Lysandra  
> Feedback: Please! Lysandra@socal.rr.com or Lysandra31@aol.com  
> Spoilers: Nothing specific. Set early in the 7th season.  
> Rating : PG-13  
> Classification: V  
> Summary: Scully tells Mulder a story.  
> Distribution: With permission only please.  
> Disclaimer: These characters are owned by Chris Carter, Ten Thirteen  
> Productions, and Twentieth Century Fox.  
> Thanks: To shannono & JHJ Armstrong for beta reading. Thanks, chicas!  
> Note: This is not a new story - it was written back in 2000 or so.

Inside Straight  
by Lysandra

At two o'clock on Friday, Mulder left Scully with the paperwork so he could  
go to Mautner's bachelor party. She didn't begrudge him the bachelor party;  
she was just jealous that he got to take a Friday afternoon off. He winked  
at her as he headed out to a strip club in a bad part of DC. He called her  
at nine o'clock Friday night, drunk as a skunk, saying wholly inappropriate  
things -- _"I'm sure your tits are better than theirs, Scully, because yours_  
 _are real"_ \-- and when he woke up the next morning he must have realized what  
he'd said because he called offering to make it up to her. She accepted, if  
only to get a free meal out of it and to see if he still had a hangover.

Now it was Saturday night. He'd brought dinner from Mario's, his favorite  
Italian restaurant; his hangover, if he'd had one, wasn't in evidence. All  
he'd said about the phone call was "remind me to use a designated dialer  
next time, Scully." She'd told him not to worry about it, and asked if he'd  
brought dessert. 

After they'd eaten he persuaded her to play poker, and was currently sitting  
on the other end of her couch, making her laugh as he shuffled the cards  
like a pro and twisted his imaginary handlebar moustache. She was usually a  
pretty good bluffer, but sensed that he could see through her poker face,  
and that he was trying to distract her. He'd started telling a story about  
card counters in Vegas, then interrupted himself to ask her a question, and  
she ended up relating a story of her own.

"When I was in fifth grade," she told him, "I cheated on a math test." He  
looked like he didn't believe this of her, so she explained further. "It  
wasn't really me who cheated; it was Brian Regan. He was terrible at math."  
She looked over her cards. "Two, please." She put her two worst cards face  
down and hoped for at least one more king as Mulder slid two cards toward  
her. "Now that I think of it, I'll bet he had dyscalculia; he was probably  
transposing the numbers. But even now it's not commonly diagnosed, though  
dyslexia is now more easily recognizable." The edges of Mulder's mouth  
crept up; he loved it when she used polysyllabic words.

She didn't give anything away as she looked at her cards, delighted that not  
only did she now have three kings, but a one-eyed jack, which Mulder had  
declared to be wild. Yes, four of a kind would do nicely. Mulder raised  
his eyebrows at her, as if asking if the cards were to her liking, and she  
silently urged him to concentrate on his own hand.

He made a show of rearranging his cards, putting them in some sort of order.  
"So this poor dyscalculic kid had to sit next to the brilliant little Dana,"  
\-- she looked up at the sound of her given name, and he was waiting for her  
reaction -- "and what? He cheated off your paper?"

"Yes," she admitted. "I knew he was doing it, and I didn't stop him."

They weren't playing for money, not even betting matchsticks. If Mulder's  
bad luck held out, it'd soon be a shame they weren't playing strip poker.  
"What've you got, Mulder?" She took a sip of wine as she waited for him to  
show his cards.

"Full house," he said, laying down two queens and three aces. "Let's see  
'em, Scully."

She was silent, instead placing her cards on the table and letting them  
speak for themselves.

"Shit, Scully, is that a one-eyed jack?"

"It was your rule," she told him, and she couldn't help but laugh. "Deal,  
Mulder." He gathered up the cards and shuffled as she went on with her  
story. "So I was overcome with guilt over letting Brian cheat, but I  
couldn't bring myself to turn him in. I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, and  
Brian wasn't in school the next two days so I couldn't even talk to him."  
She looked at her cards and imagined Mulder's face because she was about to  
say that she'd keep them all. "I wished it was Saturday because that was  
when I went to confession. None for me," she said when he pointed at her  
hand.

"None?" he asked, and she confirmed it with a shake of her head. His pupils  
actually dilated. Such a bad poker player.

She went on. "On Friday afternoon, I had a brainstorm, and after the rest  
of the class had left, I told Mrs. Seger that I had copied from Brian's  
paper. I figured this would work since we had all the same answers, and how  
was she to know who'd copied from whom?"

"I'll take three," Mulder answered, discarding three cards and replacing  
them with new ones from the deck. "I take it Mrs. Seger didn't buy that her  
most brilliant student had cheated?"

"No," she admitted. "She said, 'Dana, you are such a little girl, and you  
have such a big heart.' I was confused, being that I'd just confessed my  
crime, and here she was praising me. As you might expect, she went on to  
tell me that she had seen Brian cheating, and that she knew I hadn't copied  
from him, that it was the other way around."

Mulder smiled, just a little, as if he didn't want her to know she'd amused  
him. "Of course." He fiddled with his cards as if they were very good  
indeed, but she suspected he was bluffing.

"I thought that I should have helped him study harder, and that I shouldn't  
have let him see my paper, and that once I had, I should have told Mrs.  
Seger right away. I ended up feeling doubly ashamed -- not only for  
cheating, but now for lying, too -- and I ended up crying." She felt her  
face flushing with the memory. She chanced a look at Mulder, whose eyes  
were warm and inviting. He wasn't smiling, though; he was frowning as if  
his cards were very important.

"It was humiliating," she admitted. "But Mrs. Seger was so sweet to me,  
very motherly. You know what she said?" Mulder shook his head.

"She said, 'Dana, you are a fine young woman.' She whispered it, like it  
was our secret. She said, 'You didn't want to betray your friend; you  
didn't want to embarrass him; am I right?' I said she was right, and she  
told me that she wasn't in the business of embarrassing people, either. She  
said that she'd talked to Brian after class that day, that he'd admitted to  
cheating from my paper, and that he'd been suspended and that's why he was  
out of school."

Mulder smiled then, a real smile. "I'm glad you've relaxed your morals,  
because it's saved my ass on numerous occasions," he said. He laid down his  
cards. She was right; he had nothing. "You've taken the blame for my  
actions more than once. It's why I keep you around." She tossed a pillow  
at his head, but he caught it and threw it back. Well, they weren't called  
throw pillows for nothing.

"I wish we were playing for money," she said as she revealed her hand. He'd  
dealt her a straight.

"Are you sure you don't cheat?" he asked.

"Pretty sure, yeah." She offered him some more wine, but he raised his  
eyebrows and said it was getting late.

"You _are_ a fine young woman," he said, winking at her. "And a damn fine  
poker player."

"Sure," she said.

"Tell me another story next time," he said as he got up and put on his  
jacket.

"Next time it's your turn," she answered.

"Fair enough." He leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. "You are a fine  
woman, Scully." He whispered it in her ear, his hot breath making her  
shiver.

As she washed the wine glasses she wondered what story he'd tell her, the  
next time.

 

* End 1/1 *

 

Feedback welcomed: Lysandra@socal.rr.com or Lysandra31@aol.com


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